Lampooning Has No Limits In New York's Spy Magazine

Who are the 10 most embarrassing spectacles of humanity walking the streets of Manhattan?

Is zaftig really the new fashion de rigueur?

What gives with film critics anyhow?

So asks -- and answers -- Spy (subtitle: ''The New York Monthly''), the self-described ''brash and energetic'' satirical journal that hit the newsstands with a self-assured, satisfying thump in the Big Apple and other select markets recently.

And what is the difference between a contra and Contadora? Well, ''a contra is a Nicaraguan anti-government guerrilla, morally equivalent to our Founding Fathers,'' explains Spy. ''Contadora is the name of the alliance made up of Colombia, Mexico, Panama and Venezuela that has been trying to negotiate a peace settlement with Nicaragua. Many people mistakenly call the Contadora the Contradora. The Contradora is an organization against Dora, if it is anything at all. Furthermore, Contadora has nothing to do with Contadina, which is a company that makes tomato paste and other fine tomato products.''

Zaftig really is ''in.'' (''Just ask the Duchess of York, patron saint of the Rubenesque.'')

Film critics, or at least one particular film critic, are obsessed with ''spidery wangdoodles and little phalli.''

There you have some first-issue Spy tactics, respectively: a clip-and-save guide to ''Things That Are Confusing''; a Hall of Infamy (future lists: ''New York's 10 Most Ambitious Social Climbers,'' ''New York's 10 Most Spoiled Children''); a definitive fashion statement, and Spy's invaluable ''Review of Reviewers.''

The brainchild of former Time-Life employees Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter (editors) and ex-investment banker Tom Phillips (publisher), Spy is, according to the threesome (average age, 33.3), inspired by The New Yorker and the American Mercury (1920s-1930s), Esquire (late '50s-early '60s), England's Tattler and Private Eye magazines (contemporary) and Late Night With David Letterman (contemporary).

In fact, on the cover of the premiere issue squats geeky Late Night writer and character-guy Chris Elliott (the Conspiracy Guy, the Guy Under the Seats, the Regulator Guy) next to the big orange headline ''JERKS.''

A number of Letterman staff members are listed as Spy contributors, along with humorist Roy Blount Jr. (he's doing an Americanized Times of London-type crossword puzzle); Atlantic Monthly fashion and dance writer Holly Brubach; National Lampoon vet Tony Hendra; ''Social Disease'' author Paul Rudnick (an ongoing column that Andersen describes as ''unjustified whining by yuppies''); international social arbiter Taki, and political columnist Nicholas von Hoffman, among others.

It actually says ''among others'' on the nifty pictograph-punctuated masthead because, as gossip maven Liz Smith reported, a slew of scribes at New York publications, including The New York Times and Vanity Fair, have been warned off by their editors. Consequently, Spy is swarming with pseudonymous bylines.

Earlier this year, Edward Kosner, editor of New York magazine, fired Spy a communique that said, basically: The following magazine writers are under contract to New York and may not contribute to Spy.

''I also wished them good luck,'' Kosner noted this week when asked to confirm that he had written such a letter. ''I think the New York publishing market is like a condominium that everyone wants to move into. . . . There's room here for other magazines, and I wish them well.''

Spy's 64-page debut, with a print run of 50,000, also features a push- button phone trick by magicians Penn & Teller; a restaurant review by monologuist Spalding Gray; a not-terribly-flattering piece (okay, a hatchet job) on writer-editor-literary star Gordon Lish; and the first ''Downhill From Here'' column, explaining why it's all over for graffiti-artist-turned- cottage-industrialist Keith Haring.

''One of the things that separates this magazine from most other magazines,'' says editor Carter, sitting in Spy's office in the landmark Puck Building in SoHo, ''is that it is not a magazine completely of profiles, and there are virtually no reviews.''